Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced a fierce political backlash Tuesday over a report that the president of the UAE had warned him of a major Hamas operation days before the October 7, 2023 attack.
The Prime Minister’s Office dismissed the report as an “absolute lie.” But with Israel’s October elections less than two months away, Netanyahu’s rivals seized on it as the latest evidence of what they say is a growing list of warnings he had ignored.
The four opposition party leaders – Gadi Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman and Yair Golan – issued a rare joint statement calling for “an immediate and thorough investigation” into Netanyahu’s “failures and malfunctioning.”
“The Israeli public is entitled to know: What did Netanyahu know, when did he know, why he didn’t update the security establishment, and why he didn’t act to protect Israeli civilians?” the statement said.
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said the report is “true,” writing on X that Netanyahu’s alleged disregard for the warnings amounts to “criminal negligence.” Bennett’s political ally, former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, said he too had publicly warned of an attack before it happened, as had top Israeli security officials as well as Egyptian officials. “If Netanyahu had fulfilled his role, the massacre would have been prevented,” Lapid said in a statement.
